After a couple of months of watching me eat raw ground meat, chewing off bones and living to tell the tale -- hubbie has progressively eaten his (now grass-fed) burgers rarer and rarer until........ he ate a whole 2 tablespoons raw himself! wOOt! Funny how hard that first bite of all raw can be even with eating rare burgers and sushi all the time. It's a mental leap. He seems to only like ground. I would make very thin steak sashimi - but rare steaks are turn-off to him.
In the morning I have gotten him to stop eating cereals (FINALLY!) by making a soaked, dehydrated mixed nut and date cream/pie crust on top of which he can put all his berries and fruits (which he loves btw). The first time I put frozen banana icecream on top to really win him over. It's like the best desert you ever had anywhere. So breakfast is much better now.
For lunch I've gotten him very happy with frequent sliced sashimi en masse. We make fab sauces and add herbs and seaweeds. Sometimes he has his rare hamburger - but I'm hoping to get him willing to eat the all-raw version more and more with the raw egg yolk sauce on top but at present he will only eat such a tiny amount and he needs more meat. Lunch is a time that we eat greens cut directly from my garden. They seem to digest well for us well with the meat. It's certainly better than the bread with the hamburger that is being replaced, slowly, but surely. I find that I have to eat much less meat than him to feel good. I think he needs even more than what he is getting though and really needs bone/cartilage.
You see, he has a disc that is almost all gone. We've been doing physical stuff like traction and he now goes out to do yoga most days. The overall pain is reduced and if he gets into pain I can get him back to his baseline pretty quickly with hands-on-healing. But....... diet is pivotal! FYI he also suffers from allergies terribly here in Austin - the allergy capital of the world. People without allergies move here and get them. Most of the population suffers but he already was susceptible. Any suggestions for the disc and the allergies would be listened to with open ears and mind.
I was finally able to get some bone marrow yesterday. I tried before to get grass-fed but it was always too hard and frozen. What I got this time was not grass-fed - but better than nothing. At the market the kind butcher was also willing to cut it up into the ideal pieces to eat easily - unlike the whole bones from the farmer's market. Hubbie will eat the marrow only with his hamburgers, one bite of burger and one bite of marrow. together - but at least it's in! I took the marrow out of the bone for him but I eat it right out of the bone. I LOVE the taste of the marrow. It gives me such a wonderful hydration! It's like the best lip balm in the world. I bet over time he will come to like it more. I just HAS to be good for him.
On the stove now are the bones with the cartilage and the left-over less-soft marrow in a pot simmering. Breakfast and lunch are handled but the last meal ends up being his old cooked stuff often with brown rice and such. I at least can get him to put raw egg yolk and avocado on the rice and veggies now though. He's been watching me eat raw egg yolks from our chickens for years. I'm trying to figure out a way to make that last meal better. I figure, if it's going to be cooked, I should try to make it slow-cooked and some vegetables that are only good cooked for a larger variety of nutrients, cooked only in water and covered so the nutrients go back into the water - and a way to get some more meat and minerals into the guy. I don't understand slow-cooking much, stews or stocks. I'm thinking of it as a stop-gap on the way to getting his mineral and nutrient stores up and a way to get him towards raw....... but I only made stock once with lamb bones and he wouldn't eat it. I got some winter squashes that I thought I could put in and might help make it taste better - kombocha pumpkin is very rich and meaty. I need help with seasoning and recipes, what to add to make it taste good to the average Joe.
I feel like we have made TREMENDOUS progress considering that the changes in his diet were not self-initiated. It just shows what being an example can do when it comes to eating raw animal foods. My ears are open to all suggestions of any kind on how to help my hubbie heal up his disc, cure his allergies, get mineralized and transition to raw paleo with the most taste and grace. I'd like to pick up the pace of healing.
Diet, alternative therapies, paleo lifestyles, recipes - any old thing that comes to your mind - please don't hesitate to offer.
Thanks!
